The Maginn Machine, & The CBA Regime: a Brutal 1-2 Punch
(A belated blog on the Big 10 Scene…from a fan & interested observer)
THE MAGINN MACHINE BEGINS…
Back on December 4th the Big 10 League games started in a big bad way, with an away game for Catholic Central HS at the gym of newly crowned Section 2 AA Schools Champion Bishop Maginn.
After beating CBA for the Big School title at the Times Union Center last March, Maginn had lost its famous fearless leader Talor Battle (who is starting now at Penn State as a freshman), but had reloaded in other ways. Get this—the best player on LaSalle’s Varsity last year, Khaliq Gross—the third highest returning scorer in the Big 10 (after CCHS’s tandem of Devin Grimes and Jordan Gettings)--transfers to Bishop Maginn, and does not crack their starting line-up. He becomes likely the best sixth man in the league automatically, and will still be the 3rd or 4th leading scorer on that team by year’s end, no doubt. But he has already learned to defer to Talor Battle’s younger half-brother, Taran Buie, a true sophomore who now leads the team. After Maginn beat a strong CCHS team by a score of 77-57 that first night of league play, Gross was quoted in the T-U as saying something to the effect of “Taran is the spark that lights our fire…” which shows the respect Buie has from the upperclassmen in that vaunted program.
T. Buie showed why, within the first quarter of their first home game. Their Varsity squad comes running out on the floor to a nasty tribal rap beat thundering thru the sound system, an awesome spectacle for a Tuesday night game in upstate NY. The crowd is nearly full and hopping right from the start this year, what with last season’s success etched in their minds. They rocked like it was an urban hoe-down, making a far more raucous ruckus than I’ve seen at any other Big 10 gyms since the days of Jason MacKrieth and Rashaun Freeman at Schenectady 6 or 7 seven years ago. Schenectady High still has the hippest cheerleaders in the Big 10 (and thus all of Section 2), but Maginn now unofficially has the baddest, loudest fans…at least in their own gym.
Having seen Taran in AAU action in previous years, I knew he almost always scores within the first minute. I asked my wife how long she thought it would take for him to rack up some points, and the answer was: 14 seconds. He broke out of a trap in the deep right corner and slipped baseline, was fouled, and converted 2. Hits a deep three cleanly a minute later on his first long attempt. On defense he had a steal or two with lots of harassment out front, misses a thunderous dunk off one break, and the crowd cheers him madly, knowing there will be other such opportunities to come. They are right. He tomahawks one down about halfway thru the quarter, and hits another right wing 3 right after that. He finishes with 12 of the team’s 22 in the first stanza, and could’ve had 16 if two of his dunks didn’t bounce out.
But he’s not a one-man team either. Shimeek Johnson showed slinky athleticism with putbacks and a slam of his own off a baseline move on an out-of-bounds play. He has just accepted a D-1 Scholarship to Central Connecticut State University, and will be a well-adjusted senior as a result, it seems. He had three straight buckets at one point, and had 10 by halftime. Terron Victoria is one of the team’s leading rebounders as a 5’9” small forward, picks his spots as a shooter, and is deadly as a f/t shooter, hitting all four of his early attempts in this game. Bunduka Kargbo is the slashing point guard, built like the D-1 football prospect he might be, and tough as nails. He had two spinning dishes for dimes in the first period, and a couple of driving hoops of his own in the first half. Antonio Davis was the fifth starter, an interior defender with some size and bulk, though he got in early foul trouble covering Devin Grimes that night, and sat early. When Maginn went small, subbing in Khaliq Gross early, they still swarmed the boards, and their press was even faster. Gross had 5 first half points. When they went bigger, Raja Johnson, one of the older, taller (6’5”) sophs in the area, converted a 3 point play of his own. They go at least 9 deep in a normal game, with James Torres a beast off the bench, and T.J. Jefferson, another sharpshooter, getting minutes as needed…but they didn’t even need those two in the scoring column to end up with a 43-24 lead over CCHS at the half of that first game.
It wasn’t like CCHS was a weak team, either—the same team was essentially back from a squad that had taken Battle’s Section 2 champs to overtime in the final league game of last season, as I’ve reported before. They were coming off two impressive Tournament wins, a 32 point blowout of Schuylerville, and a convincing win over Nazareth of Staten Island. CCHS overcame 6 early turnovers against Maginn’s pressure to play almost even in the 2nd quarter (19-16), and still ended up down by 19 (43-24) at the break. Grimes had 10 with a sweet 3-ball and some inside spins, while point guard Gettings absorbed a Big 10 pounding on his drives, but hit 7 of 8 from the line, plus a contested hoop in traffic for 9 at the half. Gerard Jacques—a tough junior forward—fought inside for a bucket and a free throw, and quarterback Chris Bouchard hit two free throws. Speedy defender Zay’Quan Dupree had a couple rebounds, 2 steals of his own, and a dish. They did end up playing Maginn almost perfectly even in the second half, yet ended up on the short end of a 77-57 score.
Buie ended up with 27 that night, including four 3’s, which as others have pointed out, is the most improved part of his game. Khaliq Gross and Shimeek Johnson each had 14. Jordan Gettings hit 13 of 16 from the line to end up with 22 points for CCHS, while Devin Grimes kicked in 18 hard-fought digits, and lanky Gerard Jacques contributed 11. The next time they meet, at the CCHS gym, it will be interesting to see if Maginn is still undefeated. They have to play CBA and a strong Bishop Gibbons team before then.
After some of Maginn’s subsequent destructions of other Big 10 teams, a 20 point deficit didn’t seem so bad. (Note: they beat Albany by 60 and Schenectady by 30, and earlier had beaten downstate’s Kingston by 34 points. The Guilderland High team, considered at this stage of the season as the best team in the Suburban Council, played Maginn within 15, 74-59… so kudos to that experienced, talented squad as well.)
Then came the unexpected news that Bishop Maginn had gone up to an almost empty Glens Falls Civic Center on December 8th, only to lose to a great Class A team from Jamesville-Dewitt in a Coaches-Vs.-Cancer match-up that was NOT well-publicized, and drew meager crowds. The fact that they had been behind much of the game and never quite caught up I guessed to be due to the lack of crowd support and excitement in the stands. A team like that thrives on emotion, and in a cold, neutral, quiet environment they will perhaps be vulnerable—but those events and venues will be rare. Next time they appear in Glens Falls, whether this year or next—it seems almost inevitable—I believe there will be a bit more of a ruckus goin’ on in their behalf.
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(Next Episode—Stay Tuned…)
THREE NIGHTS LATER, FACING THE NEW CBA REGIME…
--Copyright Wayne Perras 2007
Page Posted Monday, December 17, 2007